Live Tracks
by The Heavens' Answer
Summary: Lara comes home and hears some ... sounds emanating from Sam's bedroom.


**Live Tracks**

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_**sniperct prompt:**__ lara forced to unwittingly watch sam getting it on_

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It was a really long day. A portion of it was her own fault, completely, she wasn't denying it, but she also didn't anticipate it would drain her as much as it did. Earlier in the morning, she and Sam had left together for rock-climbing, which was always the highlight of her day, even if she was terrible at vocalizing such sentiment.

But by lunchtime they had parted ways. Sam had coffee with a few old friends she hadn't seen a while and Lara had a few errands to run. Meetings with several professors, restocking and replacing some climbing equipment and first aid items for an upcoming trip she had planned with Sam, and presenting her thesis project to a bunch of stuffy, old, potential sponsors.

When the evening came around, Lara felt irritable enough that she threw a biting retort at the short, harried woman who cut in front of her in line to buy groceries and even glared at a squalling baby on the train home. Lara was quite aware of the source of her short temper. A mix of too much socializing, the heat (their AC unit broke), and lack of sleep (because their neighbours conducted very sound-carrying late night activities). Even the quick therapeutic half hour at the gun range didn't do much to improve her mood before she went to pick up some groceries on the way back home.

Which was why when she stumbled through the door into their shared flat, sweaty and sticky and feeling generally all kinds of gross with her power suit combo sticking to her skin like dried glue (in retrospect she probably should have changed at the gun range). The groceries were practically spilling out of her arms as the door banged into the wall, and she was not in the best of moods.

"Sam? I'm home!" she called, dropping her keys into the bowl they had sitting in the corner of their kitchen countertop as she methodically began stashing away the food she bought, her stomach gurgling at the sight of recently cooked pasta in a plate left out on the table. Sam was really getting better at this cooking thing. Or she bought it and made it look like it was homemade… knowing Sam, the food would require closer inspection before its origins could be determined.

But regardless, she was very touched by the gesture - she hadn't expected Sam to wait after all, seeing as how late it was. And judging by the lack of response to her arrival, and the rhythmic beat of music vaguely emanating from the direction of Sam's room, Lara assumed she hadn't heard her greeting and decided to swing by to check up on Sam.

Acid curled in her gut when she turned the corner into the hallway though, and Lara wasn't sure if it was just her hunger becoming unbearable, or the jealousy rearing it's ugly bitter head. At a distance, she hadn't heard much through the muffled music pounding through the door of Sam's bedroom, and she hadn't assumed anything but it was pretty normal of Sam to hole up in her room to work on her films, along with a soundtrack loud enough to make the walls shudder.

But up close, a few feet away from the closed door to Sam's room, Lara could distinctly pick out the sounds that - as Sam recently explained to her the meaning of- could only be literally termed UNF.

Her mind whirred for a moment, as she stared at that door, suddenly so foreboding. Inductive reasoning: Sam is home. Sam is in her room. They didn't have many guests or visitors. And even if she didn't want to admit it, one of the voices sounded a _lot_ like Sam. _Sam is having sex. _Deductive reasoning: _Sam is having sex, there are two voices and I am not in that room_.

Lara prided herself in being fairly self-aware. It was impossible not to, when one found ancient ruins more interesting than most people, and preferred to spend time holding a gun, than holding hands. So it was relatively easy to admit she was jealous.

But did she have any right to be? There was that one night. Just one. Precisely a month, eight days and nine hours ago. Not that she was keeping track, because she was pretty sure it hadn't changed anything… for Sam at least. And they'd both avoided the topic religiously through an unspoken agreement. Lara knew something would break if they did talk about it, and that something wasn't Sam. Sam was her best friend. That hadn't changed, wasn't _going _to change - if Lara had anything to say about it.

Except right now, that not talking thing - was really biting her in the ass. Her fingertips were twitching and she felt the fiery lick of unreasonable, possessive, and frankly, quite primitive feelings crawling up her throat and a heavy weight kind of crushing her chest. But it's not like she had any right to bust in and interrupt. Or even ask about after. Not with an agenda, and she had an agenda.

It was probably just a fling. Like that thing they did. The thing that Lara tried not to dwell upon because she knew she would only want more but never asked for because wanting Sam, _loving_ Sam, like _that_ was a line she didn't want to cross. Because what if Sam _didn't want her back_? The stakes were too high. She didn't want to lose her best friend, just for a chance that there might be something more. Not just based off of a fluke occurrence that neither of them would speak about. It was too risky.

Her hands curled into fitsts, as she stood there, unmoving, feeling like a creep for listening in but really - she was pretty sure she could hear it even if she retreated back to her room - she couldn't exactly unhear the moans of pleasure or the gasping cries - there really was very little doubt that that was Sam, because Lara still remembered every second of -

Then, the door swung open so fast it almost hit her in the face.

"Oh hey, Lara!" Sam exclaimed cheerfully, flouncing out in her lingerie (Lara remembered that shopping trip particularly vividly) and closing the door subtly shut behind her. "You're back early!"

Lara cleared her throat. Trying not to look too angry, or accusatory, or jealous and failing very hard at all three. "Sam, what -"

"Ugh this heat is ridiculous! They just came by to fix the AC by the way, but it's taking a long time to kick in," Sam complained, moving closer and leaning against Lara nonchalantly and throwing an arm over her shoulder - as if she weren't stripped down into extremely revealing black lacy undies and flushed and sweaty and shamelessly wearing that look - "I can't even. How are you even managing in that suit?" She leaned back. Her eyes tracked a slow trail down Lara's front appreciatively, "Looks_ hot,_" she laughed, her fingertips playing with the hem of Lara's blouse. "If you get what I mean."

And Lara just felt angrier. She actually physically pushed Sam away, gently, but she still pushed her away. "Sam, stop it!"

Sam folded her arms slowly, head tilting, looking puzzled and mildly hurt (hurt enough that Lara felt guilty for kind of lashing out). "What's gotten into you Lara, did something happen while you were out? Do you want to talk about it?" she brightened momentarily as a thought came to mind. "Oh, are you hungry, did you eat yet?"

"Oh bloody hell," Lara muttered, sidestepping Sam and bursting rather ungracefully through the door and was fully prepared to catch the culprit red-handed but

The room was empty. Sam's bed was meticulously made (which was strange enough on its own) and her computer was running her normal audio editing and video editing programs. Needless to say, Lara was really confused, when she turned around to see Sam watching her curiously with an amused expression. But she had to get to the bottom of this. "Sam, were you watching porn?"

Sam looked at her, almost as if horror struck, for a moment, before bursting out laughing. "Of course not, Lara…" Sam's laughter petered out when she saw Lara's expression and Lara's fist curled around the doorframe, as if bracing to keep her composure. "Lara, are you ok?"

"You weren't…? I heard you...?" Lara felt the heat rise up to her face, as she awkwardly tried to look Sam in the eye.

"Oh you're adorable, Sweetie," Sam stepped closer, pulling Lara into a tight, almost unbreathable hug before pulling away to hold her face, gazing into her eyes with the most heartbreakingly earnest expression, "You thought I had someone over?"

"In a manner of speaking," Lara admitted, in a mildly strangled voice. "What _were_ you doing, Sam?"

Sam ran a hand through her hair, giggling almost embarrassedly. "So you know how you mentioned how ever since they've moved in, you could hear Jack and Miranda going at it like… through the walls? And I know you don't like sleeping with earplugs, and really I've been kind of worried about you because you've got these terrible bags under your eyes and no appetite and I'm pretty sure it's cause you're not sleeping so! I had this idea…It's not quite finished yet, but here I'll show you," she grabbed Lara's hand and dragged her to her computer.

Sam sat down, cranked up a few settings and bounced out of her chair so she could push Lara down into it and place her massive headphones over Lara's ears. She then, with Lara's nod of assent very dramatically and triumphantly pressed play and Lara nearly choked when the very realistic vocalizations of pleasure in Sam's voice played against an oozing backdrop of a very familiar soundtrack in seven point one digital surround sound.

She swiveled in the chair so she could stare, a little dumbstruck at Sam, who was beaming proudly at her, in her lingerie. After the… apex of the… choice solo track she was listening to, she pulled off the Sennheiser headset with numb fingers and looked at Sam, with equal parts gratitude, disbelief and guilt. "So you were going to…?"

"Well you can hear them. I can't. So I was thinking," Sam grinned playfully, "You could come here and sleep with me for however long it takes, and we'll put this audio on loop right next to your bedroom wall and we'll see if they get the message."

"Or we could just ask them to tone it down?" Lara said weakly. Not even sure why she was protesting. Or trying to worm her way out of this. But she wasn't thinking straight, that's for sure. Not with those sounds echoing around in her head, and Sam standing there right in front of her, wearing _that_ -

"Oh Lara, you gotta fight fire with fire!" Sam was playing with the collar of her blazer now. "Though I did have another idea..." she said, her voice dropping ominously low.

Lara swallowed. "Yeah?"

Sam very carefully pulled Lara closer in the chair, and very slowly sat down in her lap. Leaning in close, she tucked her hair coyly behind one ear before whispering - Lara felt a spark sink through her stomach like wildfire all the way down to her toes - breath wet and hot in the shell of her ear -

"If you're up to it… we could make a _live _track."


End file.
